The New Jersey of Himachal Pradesh

I just returned from a field visit to two villages in Nalagarh Tehsil, Himachal Pradesh. Nalagarh is an industrial area and looks like that section of the Jersey Turnpike with all the smokestacks and polluted air and general nastiness. This was my first visit to industrial India (as opposed to rural and urban India, though I guess this is still technically rural). While Nalagarh's situation is probably not nearly as bad as the steel plants in Jharkhand or the mines in Orissa, it wasn't pretty.

One village we visited, Baglehar, is home to a "stone-crushing" operation. Turns out this means a quarry. The other village, Melheni, does not host any industrial projects, but its residents participate in the "stone crushing." Basically, villagers go to the quarry, cut out large rocks from the earth (I didn't catch what type of rock), fill up tractor-pulled truck beds with these rocks (I didn't actually see any crushed stone), and deliver these rocks to cement companies, who I suppose are the real stone crushers. The main road in the area is clogged with tractor traffic going to and from the quarry.

This quarry has caused a number of problems in Baglehar, Melheni, and surrounding villages. The quarry appears to sit on a riverbed, and the river has all but dried up. What little water does remain is heavily polluted and unusable for drinking water or even irrigation. Therefore these villages have no water, which is, obviously, a tremendous problem. I was shocked to see the toilets at Melheni's primary school were locked. Apparently they have no water to flush the toilets, so they cannot use them--better to lock them so people don't try to. Instead, children must practice open defecation and urination. Melheni gets water delivered by large tanker trucks every few months, and this limited water supply has led to many conflicts among villagers. While Baglehar utilizes ground water, it is not enough (not to mention far from clean), and when tankers come some women must wait for 3 hours or more to collect their share of water.

In addition to the water problems, the workers are exposed to all sorts of harmful chemicals and will probably suffer from (and possibly die young of) some avoidable respiratory disease, like at any quarry or mine. Plus much of the quarry activity is illegal and run by a cement cartel that exploits the workers. All sorts of health and human rights issues. The cement cartel, like all cartels in India, wields its power through big politicians, and this corruption means stopping the cartel is next to impossible, unless India can successfully eradicate corruption from its political and bureaucratic systems--a very, very difficult task in this country.

One coworker was particularly distraught over the situation. "We need to protest!" he proclaimed. "We need to stop these illegal, harmful operations!" Well, it's just not that simple. This quarry has been successful in providing much-needed income that the villagers have thus far been unable to earn otherwise, as evidenced by the relative wealth in Baglehar (this relative wealth incited another coworker to comment, "Why are we even here? Look at these houses! This village is wealthy and does not need our help!") If one were to protest and shut down the quarry, who would really lose? The villagers. The corporations would simply move the operation elsewhere and still make their money (and harm other environments and people), while these villagers would lose their jobs. But I don't think the villagers would support a protest in the first place, and if they don't support it, then the protest could not be successful.

The upset coworker went around asking villagers if they would leave the quarry if provided with additional buffaloes so that they could sell more milk. After all, they only make Rs 150 per day at the quarry, and they could certainly make more than that selling dairy products--plus they wouldn't have to suffer the health costs. Their answer? No. And I do not find this surprising at all. Why?

1. They don't understand the health costs. Sure, it may seem fairly obvious that if you're being exposed to harmful chemicals that you will have to seek expensive medical treatment. But (a) they don't know about the effects of the pollutants and (b) many will not seek medical attention anyway. (This is a big problem in the cookstove world. We say "hey all this smoke is killing your lungs" and they respond "well, everyone has a cough.")
2. They don't want to go back to agriculture and animal husbandry. Yes, breaking rocks and loading them onto a tractor is very labor intensive. But so is taking care of buffaloes. You need to feed them, bathe them, clean up their excrement, milk them, take them to a veterinarian when they fall ill. And caring for animals could cost more than going to the quarry--for example, you need to buy fodder (there are no forests in the area, and while the fields provide some fodder after harvesting, that is only once or twice a year, and it is not enough). Plus agriculture and animal husbandry can be unpredictable, whereas the quarry provides a stable source of income.

So how could you convince villagers to leave the quarry? Devise an alternative livelihood opportunity that provides them with a stable income greater than Rs 150/day. And that is quite difficult--new ventures come with a great deal of uncertainty.

To me, this problem is similar to the global oil problem, or the deforestation problem in Madagascar. You can only stop these environment-degrading activities if you cut the demand. As long as there is demand for cement--and as India continues to develop, pave more roads, and construct more buildings, and upgrade its infrastructure, this demand will not be declining any time soon--there will be quarries and the associated environmental and social damage.